Municipalities Project invite you to harvest

SUMMARY

The Municipalities in Transition project is an innovative collaboration stemming from the Hubs group in partnership with Transition Network, which aims at creating a clear framework for how Transition groups and municipalities can create sustainable change together. This project will map existing experiences of effective and systemic-change collaboration between local authorities and transition initiatives, worldwide. Launched in early 2017, the project will initially run until the end of 2018.

WHY WORK WITH MUNICIPALITIES?

From the Transition Movement we are aware of many examples of engaged communities working for positive change who feel unsupported, even blocked, by local government. We also know there are many municipalities with positive goals and a determination to act who are struggling to build genuinely collaborative relationships with local citizens.

For that reason, the main objective of the project is to create a clear framework for how Transition groups and municipalities can create sustainable change together, that will then be tested in three (or more) pilot partnerships between Transition Hubs and municipalities.

The harvesting and mapping process will work as follows:

Phase 1 (from early July 2017 to 30th September 2017)

We need to gather information about experiences (cases or case studies) where local governments are involved in a stable and organized way in something that has (or tries to have) the features of a Transition process. The cases can be directly connected with the Transition movement (where Local Initiatives or the Transition Hub are involved), partially connected (inspired by), or completely disconnected (but showing transition features anyway). This first gathering of information is intended to be light, quick and based on voluntary contributions of transitioners worldwide, using the following survey:

Phase 1 Harvesting Form

Before setting out to fill in the form, please read carefully the attached Form Summary PDF to better understand the type of information we are asking for. Do not be daunted by the length of the form – not all questions or sections have to be answered.

The form to gather information at “phase 1 level” will be ongoing throughout 2017 and 2018, even if the data collected after the start of October will not be used in phase 2 of this project. However, we believe it is in the movement’s interest to continue collecting experiences to support a strong evidence base that will then allow Hubs and initiatives to access more resources for this type of work.

The form must be filled out once for every case study.

Phase 2 (from early October 2017 to December 2017)

In Phase 2 we will choose the most interesting and promising cases and allocate seed funding to support/explore the cases in more depth before choosing 3 case studies as pilots for 2018. The criteria for selection will be based on the information gathered in Phase 1.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT*

*only applicable to Transition hubs, emerging hubs and transition initiatives (in those places where there is no hub)

Phase 1 support

Although this phase is designed to run on voluntary contributions, we agreed to reserve a limited amount of the seed funding budget for hubs and TIs (5.000 euros in total) in case you really need to be supported in this Phase.

That amount can be allocated to hubs in order to provide a little economic support to those harvesting information received within the deadline (30/09/2017). The money will be provided only to Transition Hubs, Emerging Hubs and TIs with no hub in the area, but each one can decide how to use it.

If you (really) need to take advantage of this option please contact Ana Huertas before 31/07/2017 at anahuertas@reddetransicion.org, explaining who you are (hub you belong to, or TI where there is no hub), how much you would need, why you need the money and how you plan to use it. Please bear in mind that funding for Phase 1 is very limited when deciding on the amount you would need.

Phase 2 support

There are between 18,000-23,000 Euros (in total) allocated for the seed-funding across all the phase 2 cases identified. More information on this funding wave will be shared after phase 1 concludes, at the start of October 2017.

If you have more specific questions, we invite you to contact Ana at anahuertas@reddetransicion.org

Thank you very much for your collaboration!

In community,

Ana Huertas  MiT Project Coordinator